First I missed a couple of posts last week due to illness, then I tried to make up for it by posting several heavy-duty articles this week.

I may have overdone it! One reader commented that my Monday article, “Living With Health, Wellness and Wholeness” was way too long. I agree. Next time I will break those 2100-word novels into smaller chunks and make them into a series.

Reader questions

I’m currently working on the answer to a reader’s question about daydreaming, escapism and PTSD (one of those fluffy subjects that I’m famous for).

This will be the first of what I hope will be many reader questions that I will (attempt to) answer on the blog.

I always welcome your questions. I have had several that I’ve answered by email already, though they will not appear here because the people didn’t want them to.

If you have questions, please feel free to leave a comment on a post or email me using the Contact tab. If you wouldn’t mind their appearing here, I promise that your identity will remain anonymous.

A question for you!

One of my most trusted readers commented that my “About” page might terrify those who are new to Anxiety Disorders. It gives a brief outline of the course of my mental illness, which is fleshed out in the “My Story” page.

I am currently in the process of revising some of the core articles, particularly those two pages.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to scan them and leave a comment here so I can have some guidance from you.

The new look

Those faithful readers who have stayed with this blog for more than a couple of weeks know that the way it looks has changed radically. Before I was using a much darker theme, and now I’m using a much brighter theme called Thesis. A theme is a piece of software that determines how your blog appears.

I conducted a survey the week before last that gave my readers the opportunity to voice their preferences. Here’s the results:

71.2 percent were in favor of changing something about the appearance

42.9 percent were in favor of making it brighter

28.8 percent said it was ok as it was

14.3 percent declared the site was ugly!

My thoughts all along were to change to a brighter look, but I’ve kept it to myself until now. If enough readers had said they liked it as it was, I would have reconsidered.

I hope you like the new look. I’m thrilled with it. My wife says it looks like the New York Times!

50 Quick and Easy Ways to Calm Your Anxiety

The Nursing Online Education Database has an interesting article entitled “50 Quick and Easy Ways to Calm Your Anxiety” on their site. Although aimed at the “everyday” type of anxiety many people feel rather than full-fledged Anxiety Disorders, it has some useful tips that may prove helpful to you.

Medication is replacing psychotherapy

The LA Times reports a new study that finds medication replacing traditional psychotherapy. The number of patients receiving psychotherapy fell from 44.4 percent in 1996-97 to 28.9 percent in 2004-05.

Researchers attribute the shift to insurance reimbursement policies that favor short medication visits to a psychiatrist compared with longer psychotherapy sessions, among other things.

It has been my experience that longer-term work with a psychologist to be much more effective than the 8 to 12 sessions with a counselor that most EAP plans afford. Without such work, I would be as non-functional as I was five years ago!

Upcoming posts

Here are some of the posts you will be seeing in the next week or two:

Daydreaming, Escapism and PTSD

Shyness or Social Phobia?

Victimization and Self-Victimization

Psychological Advanced Directives

Wellness Recovery Plans

Several articles about the results of new research

Have a great weekend!

As always, your comments are welcome!

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